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August 2010

August 19, 2010

Peter Gotcher, the Chairman and co-founder of Santa Monica-based music startup Topspin Media, has scored an Emmy award, for his work in co-founding firm Digidesign. The Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award was given over the weekend to the founders of Digidesign, by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Mr. Gotcher was presented the Philo T. Farnsworth award for his role in the creation of the AVID digital video editor, now the non-linear gold standard for editing film and television. Somewhere along the line, AVID was merged with Digidesign, the company that also produces ProTools, the gold standard for music and audio studio production software.

Mr. Gotcher is also a principal in the a company called Topspin, which is the gold standard for "direct to fan" music merchandising and fan-base management. I just started using Topspin for a new band I'm working with, The Waymores.

So, let's see... I write a book, the academy creates an award, and now the guy who created the web-platform I've been using has won the award.

Inventor and television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906 in Beaver County, Utah. The family moved to a farm near Rigby, Idaho during World War I. There, Philo set off on the path that would earn him the designation as “the father of television.

August 06, 2010

Finally, somebody comes right out and asks the question that I've been asking for like three years now:

What is going on with this man? Here's a guy who battled drug addiction and got busted at the Burbank Airport for holding. He's been in the tabloids himself. Now he takes on all these Perez Hilton stories. But instead of finding the good in people he goes for the bad. And he's not even truthful about it.

A good example is his recent play The Farnsworth Invention. The play, which was once in development as a feature film, has the big, bad corporation win the lawsuit against the actual inventor of TV, Philo Farnsworth. Farnsworth then dies a broken man in abject poverty.

Actually, Farnsworth won the lawsuit and lived a long and fruitful life. That's quite a difference, Mr. Sorkin. When called on it on Facebook of all things, Sorkin blew the question off claiming that there were many lawsuits and Farnsworth lost as many as he won. Yeah, but he won the big one Aaron. And he didn't die a broken man!

I meant it when I said to Aaron Sorkin - when I met him in La Jolla in April, 2007 during the pre-Broadway run of The Farnsworth Invention - that I would not have made it through the GWBush years without The West Wing there to offer a weekly reminder of how the country is supposed to work.

But somewhere between The West Wing and The Farnsworth Invention, it seems to me that Aaron Sorkin was assimilated into the Borg. I guess that's what happens when you get rich sucking in the giant corporate tit.